The present invention relates to a vehicle for spreading products on the road surface, in particular de-icing or abrasive products.
Vehicles adapted to spread, on the asphalt layer covering the roadbed, abrasive products adapted to improve the roadholding properties of the road surface and/or de-icing products adapted to prevent (or remove) ice formation and deposits of snow on this road surface are known. The first category of vehicles includes vehicles adapted to spread on the road surface granular abrasive products (such as gravel or sand) adapted to be incorporated into the layer of ice possibly covering the road surface in order to improve its roadholding properties. The second category of vehicles includes vehicles adapted to spread on the road surface de-icing products (such as chlorides, salt grains, saline or melting solutions in general) adapted to prevent (or remove) ice formation and/or deposits of snow on the road surface.
Vehicles of the above type whose operation is controlled by electronic control devices adapted to control the spreading parameters of the products (for instance the quantity of product spread per square meter, the width and symmetry of spreading, etc.) in a predetermined way are in particular known.
These known electronic control devices in particular comprise a memory containing a plurality of spreading parameters grouped in programs, each of which is adapted to a particular morphological condition of the route and/or to a particular meteorological condition, a keyboard disposed within the vehicle for the selection of the program most adapted to the route being travelled by the vehicle, and a processing unit adapted to read from the memory the spreading parameters relating to the program selected in order to determine and actuate the quantity of product distributed and its distribution methods.
At present, however, once the product spreading program that is in keeping with the meteorological condition and the morphological condition of the route has been selected, the relative parameters are actuated irrespective of variations in the actual morphological conditions of the route and therefore, if these conditions vary, the spreading parameters are no longer optimum and have to be adjusted manually by the vehicle operator who has to assess the specific situation and act accordingly on the spreading parameters.
There may, for instance, be variations in the morphological conditions of the route when the vehicle approaches a junction, a viaduct or a square, etc., at the location of which it is normally necessary to vary the product spreading parameters. The morphological conditions of the route may also vary when the width of the carriageway varies.
It has therefore been felt necessary to provide vehicles equipped with devices for controlling spreading operations that are able automatically to act on the spreading parameters if there is any variation in the morphological conditions of the route on which spreading is taking place and also to avoid errors caused by difficult operating conditions and/or operator errors.